NLRB reform legislation aims at treating ‘disease,’ not just ‘symptoms’

Each of the controversial regulations are being challenged in various capacities. But, Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson said Scott’s legislation would ensure these kinds of decisions wouldn’t happen again. Wilson adds that it would ensure that only fair labor law decisions are made.

“We found in polling that a significant number of union members think this should be able to go straight to the courts and the reason is, is that when the board is constituted by Republicans in the past, they’ve tied up union claims that eventually had to get to the federal court,” Wilson said. “So, what I think Austin’s bill does, is it makes it fair for everybody. There’d be one set of rules and it doesn’t matter who’s in the White House or what party it is – and it puts cases where they’re eventually going to end up anyway.”

In fact, 61 percent of union members polled by ALG in a The Polling Company/WomanTrend poll say they don’t think the NLRB should have “exclusive power to officiate legal proceedings over private U.S. companies in its own court system.” Technically, Wilson said that means a majority of union members would support Scott’s legislation.

Scott thinks his bill will garner bipartisan support and should get endorsed by conservative groups and labor unions. Both sides criticize the NLRB for the same reasons and, as recently as 2007, the AFL-CIO led a march from its downtown Washington, D.C., headquarters to the NLRB calling for the board to be disbanded.

“Depending on who the president is, they [the unions like the AFL-CIO, SEIU, etc.] either support the agency or they don’t which is not the way it’s supposed to work,” Scott told TheDC. “But, I think from the standpoint of the men and women who are out there working on a day-to-day basis who actually comprise the membership of the unions, I think that they would be supportive of it.”